Shroom and Gloom Review Summary

Gorgeous art and unique, addictive deckbuilding shine, but widespread balance issues, lacking controller and keyboard support, and visual UI bugs hold it back.

Art style is gorgeous: The art direction and visual style receive widespread praise, with many calling it beautiful, gorgeous, and stunning. This is a major draw for players and a key strength of the game.

Game is fun and addictive: Players consistently describe the game as fun, enjoyable, and addictive, with a satisfying gameplay loop and a positive vibe. The high frequency and specific praise indicate strong overall satisfaction.

Unique deckbuilding mechanics: The game is praised for its innovative and refreshing take on deckbuilding, particularly the dual-deck system that adds strategic depth. Players find it unique yet familiar, making it stand out in the genre.

Rich content and variety: Players appreciate the abundance of content, including multiple characters, card variety, and many activities. The game offers a lot to do, even in early access, which enhances replayability.

Great atmosphere and vibes: The game's atmosphere is described as interesting, atmospheric, and top-notch, with a unique and charming vibe. Players enjoy the immersive and sometimes weird but appealing mood.

Balance issues widespread: Feedback highlights numerous balance problems, including the practice dummy, second area, and end boss debuff being too strong. Overall, the game needs balance changes to provide a fair challenge.

Controller and keyboard support lacking: Controller support is not available, and there is no key re-mapping or display of keyboard shortcuts. Only one shortcut (spacebar to end turn) is known, and card play badly needs shortcut keys.

Visual and UI bugs: There are visual bugs, cards getting stuck, and action prompts exceeding display range. These issues hinder readability and interaction, requiring fixes.

Difficulty spikes and progression issues: After the bossfight, players are thrown into the next biome without saves or major upgrades, and enemies are much stronger. The game must be beaten in one go, with death restarting without keeping anything, making success depend on random rather than strategy.

First run confusing: The game does not explain what to do, leaving players confused on their first run. Lack of guidance and a starting cutscene contributes to a poor initial experience.

Two-deck mechanic is core: Players manage separate decks for combat and exploration/resting, each with unique abilities and synergies. This dual-deck system is the most frequently mentioned feature, appearing in clusters 1, 5, 12, 28, and 44.

Roguelike deckbuilder genre: The game is consistently described as a roguelike deckbuilder or card battler, with runs featuring build variety and meta progression. This genre classification is highlighted in clusters 2, 3, 6, and 43.

Exploration and combat systems: The game includes both combat and exploration phases, with exploration using cards like shovel or key in room-based scenarios. This blend is noted in clusters 4, 7, 27, and 32.

Card upgrade and evolution: Players focus on incrementally upgrading cards, with mechanics like mutating and evolving cards, and cutting base cards early. This is emphasized in clusters 14, 15, 26, 38, and 47.

Strategic card management: The main mechanic involves knowing which cards to use, with balanced cards and enjoyable synergies. This strategic depth is mentioned in clusters 16, 17, 20, and 30.

Performance issues on various hardware: Multiple users report performance problems including choppiness, stuttering, and overheating on different systems. These issues range from minor frame drops to severe hardware strain.

Frame rate and settings issues: Users report the game runs at 30 fps in 1440p and that adjusting frame rate settings has no effect. This indicates a lack of optimization and control for players.

Mixed performance feedback: While some users report performance problems, others note the game runs really well or works fine on Steam Deck. This suggests performance varies significantly by hardware.

Highly recommended for deck builder fans: Multiple reviewers strongly recommend the game to fans of deck-building games, emphasizing its quality and appeal within the genre. This feedback is consistent across several clusters, indicating a strong positive reception from the target audience.

Worth the purchase price: Several reviewers affirm that the game is worth its current cost, suggesting good value for money. This is a common sentiment among positive reviews, reinforcing the game's overall worth.

Must-buy for genre enthusiasts: A subset of reviewers explicitly label the game as a must-buy for fans of the genre, indicating it stands out among similar titles. This strong endorsement is particularly notable for card battler and roguelike fans.

Appeals to Inscryption and Slay the Spire fans: Reviewers specifically recommend the game to fans of Inscryption and Slay the Spire, suggesting it shares appealing mechanics or themes with these popular titles. This helps potential buyers understand the game's style and likely enjoyment.

Worth trying for unique indie game lovers: One reviewer recommends the game to those who enjoy unique indie games, highlighting its distinctiveness. This suggests the game offers a novel experience that may appeal to players seeking something different.

The game is fun immediately for most players, with minor early-access friction and difficulty spikes that do not prevent initial enjoyment.

Friction: Unclear mechanics needing a tutorial; Early-game difficulty if not set up well; Death without keeping stuff feels stressful and boring; Repetitive choices that don't matter much; Early-access issues like localization and performance.

Deck-Builder Veteran: Optimizes builds, compares mechanics to other deck-builders, and seeks challenging but fair difficulty. Motivation: To master the meta scaling and create powerful, broken combos within each run. Stance: buy.

Aesthetic Seeker / Chill Player: Casual, appreciates visuals and ambiance, may not focus on optimization or meta. Motivation: To enjoy the game's atmosphere, art, and relaxing vibe. Stance: buy.

Curious Newcomer: Plays intuitively, makes mistakes, but remains curious and unbothered by failure. Motivation: To explore a new genre and experience the game without frustration, learning as they go. Stance: buy.

Steam Deck: The game runs on Steam Deck despite being marked unsupported. Users report it works fine overall, with occasional brief stuttering during loading or area changes. Controller support is missing but not required for playability. No launcher, anti-cheat, or text readability issues were mentioned, resulting in low friction.

Comparisons to Slay the Spire: Multiple reviews compare the game to Slay the Spire, noting initial similarities but also unique elements. Some see it as a potential go-to roguelike alongside Slay the Spire 2.

Comparisons to Inscryption: Several reviews compare the game to Inscryption, particularly in appearance and atmosphere, but note differences in expressiveness and walking mechanics. One review also compares it to Gwent, highlighting a reliance on randomness over strategy.

Demo and full version: A demo exists alongside the full version, and reviewers mention getting hooked on the demo. The full version offers more depth and a deepened camp compared to the demo.

Lack of Russian and Ukrainian translations: Reviews note the absence of Russian and Ukrainian language support, but developers have stated Russian will be added as a priority. Basic language knowledge is sufficient for comfortable play.

Early access state: The game is in early access and still being worked on, with developers planning to add more content. This is mentioned as a positive for ongoing development.